How to get started with Android development

First you need to install the Android development tools. Personally I use Eclipse with the ADT plug-in because it allows you to easily manage Android projects and provides nice integrate with the emulator. Not quite as nice as Xcode but it does the trick.

Android development tools (install in this order)

1. Java Development Kit
2. Android SDK
   (Note: After installing add the location to your PATH system variable.)
3. Classic Eclipse (v3.5)
4. ADT Plugin for Eclipse
   This plugin is installed within Eclipse.
   Goto Help->Install New Software.
   Then add https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/ to the “Location” field. After clicking “Ok” to the popup you should see “Developer Tools” added to the list. Check it and click next. Follow through until the Finish. Make sure you restart Eclipse.

Getting something quickly up and running on the emulator

First you need to create a new Android Virtual Device (AVD):

1. Goto Window->Android SDK and AVD Manager
2. Click “New” at the side to create an AVD
3. Enter a name for the AVD (remove all spaces)
4. Select a target Android version (most devices these days are running either v2.1+ or v1.6)
5. Enter in the size of the SD card (I usually just put 500MiB)
6. Then click “Create AVD”
7. You can now start up your enumerator by clicking start or it will be run automatically once the Project’s Build Target is set.
   

Running the sample helloworld application:

1. Create a new project using the existing helloworld sample source from the Android SDK directory.
2. File -> New -> Project
3. Select Android Project
4. Create project from existing source selecting the location of the sample HelloWorld application
   For example:
   C:\android-sdk-windows\platforms\android-4\samples\HelloActivity
   (Note: I’m using Android 1.6 (API Level 4) hence the android-4 directory)
5. Click “Finish”
6. Now goto Run -> Run (or press ctrl F11) to compile and run the project
7. The emulator will take a while to load but after a while you’ll see the Android UI then the Hello World app pop up.
   Note: After you make some changes you normally don’t need to restart the emulator every time, you can simply run again and it will re-install the app. Depending on what you have changed however you may need to uninstall your application first from the settings.

   For more information see the Android Development website: http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html